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A Shopping-Scanner Darkly
An anonymous reader writes "Using functional MRI scans, researchers have found which parts of the brain are active when people consider buying something and can predict whether or not they'll ultimately bite. One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash."
It is really going to be hard to fit the MRI machine in the line at the supermarket.
From the Article:
"One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash."
So, in short, they are considering if the item is worth the asking price? That actually sounds a lot like a rational thought process to me.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Is today Philip K Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_k_dick day or what? http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/ 03/1829258
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
Did I miss it? What's next... Slashdot story on immigration visas titled "Minority Import"?
I mean, when you're considering whether to buy something out of the ordinary, do you think "but I could spend this money on something else!" No, you think "but I'll have less/no pocket money left..." Maybe then the other things come to mind, but the first thought is that you'll have a smaller surplus. On some level, the first may be why you want more money, but it isn't the first thing you think of. This isn't some hidden mechanism of our brains; it's pretty intuitive.
We're loving the PKD reference titles today.
We Can Remember Them For You Wholesale, as a matter of fact.
If the brain doesn't have to worry about forking over cash, that explains why free items are so ridiculously popular... even something that people would sign away their privacy or credit to get, like free t-shirt for credit card apps that you see all over any college campus.
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This is why the financial advice that you always pay cash, not by check or credit card, helps you keep within your budget. I seem to recall that people cut expenses by 30% or so once they started forking over 2-3 $20s for dinner with a friend instead of a little piece of plastic.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Clearly becomes impervious to pain when she takes my credit card and goes shopping for shoes.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
First Do Electric Sheep Dream of Civil Rights? and now A Shopping-Scanner Darkly? Next article we'll undoubtedly be called Flow My Oily Tears, the Android Said.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Could it be Best Buy?
I can see it now: the information they learn from this study ends up in their sales manuals on how to upsell customers and make them purchase more than what the needed/wanted.
Joking, of course... but it could still happen.
(From the Laws of Japanese Animation) Law of Inherent Combustibility -- Everything explodes. Everything.
Show them all sorts of products with insanely low prices (new 19" LCDs from $99, 300 GB hard drives from $30, etc, etc) and see their reaction. Obviously, it will be positive. Then show them the (obviously) marked up shipping costs ($100 for the monitor, $70 for the hard drive). Then they should react negatively. Continue with the pattern until you find a point at which the person no longer is interested in low prices and considers looking at higher priced items to see if the shipping cost is normal.
Certainly would have interesting results...
Can we? Can we?
I can see two likely results from this phenomenon. First, impulse purchases will be for a relatively low amount of money. People are less reluctant to part with a couple bucks. Secondly, larger purchases will be planned. The planning allows the purchaser to justify releasing the larger amount money.
I'd like to know if this extends to purchases made with others' money. Does a company purchase agent's brain operate the same way? Several jokes have been made in earlier threads about women buying shoes with the posters' credit card--does this effect still occur when the purchaser isn't personally responsible for the spending?
I've stated for years that when writing out checks for bills and such that it "physically pains me" to do so.
I'll have to show this article to my significant other as scientific proof that I'm not just being dramatic when I say that.
Not only that, you're going to zap every credit and debit card within an appreciable radius and I'm thinking you'll know pretty quickly if the guy in line next to you has a pacemaker or any other metallic implants.
OTOH, a lot of jewelry and loose change is going to fly to the center of the machine when you fire it up in the checkout line, so that may offset your costs somewhat.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
First Do Electric Sheep Dream of Civil Rights? and now A Shopping-Scanner Darkly? Next article we'll undoubtedly be called Flow My Oily Tears, the Android Said.
Hmm, why not BladeRIAAnner?
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
If stores want a better hold of a customer's wallet, shouldn't they perhaps focus a little less on the actual putting of items in baskets, and suchlike, and a little more focus on the actual forking over of cash?
If they manage to somehow make that experience easier for customers, perhaps they will find themselves more inclined to fork cash over to their stores rather than their rival's.
Well, duh. Only economists actually think about opportunity cost. Everyone else considers spending vs. not spending. (Not to say they're wrong, since they're not, it's just that they have a tendency to over-estimate the depth of thought people put into economic decisions.)
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
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Who is qualified to rate God's work?
shouldn't they perhaps focus a little less on the actual putting of items in baskets, and suchlike, and a little more focus on the actual forking over of cash?
Yeah, Home Depot's got that one nailed with their "self-checkout" debacle. They make you focus on the forking-over-of-cash so hard that it makes you want to leave your pile of crap at the register and go shop somewhere else.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
No, the best way would be to have half naked women sidle up to you and tell you they will go home with you only if you buy something expensive.
I, for one, would welcome our half naked female overlords.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!